Al Jazeera :
At least 89 migrants and refugees bound for Europe have died, with dozens still missing, when their boat capsized off the coast of Mauritania, according to state media.
The fishing boat capsized on Monday about 4km (2.4 miles) from the West African country’s southwestern coastal city of Ndiago. The Mauritanian coastguard recovered 89 bodies and rescued nine people, including a five-year-old girl, said the state news agency on Thursday.
Survivors quoted by state media said the boat had departed from the border of Senegal and Gambia with 170 people on board, which would mean 72 are now missing. A senior government official confirmed the information to the AFP news agency.
The boat capsized due to strong winds and high waves on the dangerous Atlantic route, known for its strong currents. Migrants travel in overloaded, often unseaworthy, boats without enough drinking water.
Earlier this year, the European Union promised Mauritania, a former French colony, financial support worth 210m euros ($229m) to tackle migration and provide humanitarian aid for migrants.
The agreement came amid a steep increase in the number of migrants setting off from the country towards Spain’s Canary Islands, located about 100km (62 miles) off the northwest coast of Africa.
More than 5,000 people died while trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, or the equivalent of 33 deaths per day, according to Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish charity. The vast majority were on the Atlantic route.
Increasing numbers opt to travel by land, with deaths of people crossing perilous routes in the Sahara presumed to be double those occurring at sea, according to a new report from the United Nations refugee and migration agencies and the Mixed Migration Centre research group.
“Refugees and migrants are increasingly traversing areas where insurgent groups, militias and other criminal actors operate, and where human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, forced labour and sexual exploitation are rife,” said the report, released on Friday.
The report, researched over three years, said that conflict and instability in countries including Mali, Burkina Faso and Sudan are driving a rise in the number of journeys towards the Mediterranean.